# cucurbita
## English
### Noun

cucurbita (plural cucurbitas)
* Alternative form of cucurbit (plant).
** 1895 April 24, W. M. W. VanNess, “Vases”, in The Herald and Presbyter: A Presbyterian Family Paper, volume LVI, number 17, Cincinnati, Ohio, page 26:“But where can I get the gourds—I beg your pardon, the cucurbitas?’
** 1977, George F. Carter, “A Hypothesis Suggesting a Single Origin of Agriculture”, in Charles A. Reed, editor, Origins of Agriculture, The Hague, Paris: Mouton Publishers, →ISBN, section two (Worldwide Concepts), page 123:To the gourd growers and potters reaching America, would not the most obvious candidate in this strange botanical world be the most gourdlike plant, hence the cucurbitas? The suggestion has been made that the earliest use of the cucurbitas was for their seeds.
** 2019, Marina F. de-Escalada-Pla, Silvia K. Flores, Adriana P. Castellanos-Fuentes, Carolina E. Genevois, edited by Alexandru Grumezescu and Alina Maria Holban, Value-Added Ingredients and Enrichments of Beverages (The Science of Beverages; volume 14), Woodhead Publishing, →ISBN, section 2 (C. moschata Tissue as Raw Material for Functional Food and Ingredient Development), page 207:There are some registrations that associate the cucurbitas to the origin of the agriculture and the civilization. They are also among the first species of plants to be domesticated. Some evidences showed that the mixture of cucurbitas, corn, and beans was the nutritional base of the pre-Columbian civilizations (Withaker and Bemis, 1975).

### References

* “cucurbita”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
* “cucurbita”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

## Italian
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cucurbita. Doublet of zucca and cocuzza.

### Noun

cucurbita f (plural cucurbite)
* gourd

## Latin
### Etymology

Possibly a loanword related to cucumis (“cucumber”), or to corbis (“basket”), corbīta (“freight vessel”). Maybe from Sanskrit चिर्भट m (cirbhaṭa, “long melon, Cucumis melo subsp. melo var. conomon syn. Cucumis melo var. utilissimus”), चर्भट m (carbhaṭa, “idem”), चिर्भटी f (cirbhaṭī, “idem”), but the mediation is unknown. Compare Old English hwerhwette.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /kuˈkur.bi.ta/, [kʊˈkʊrbɪt̪ä]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /kuˈkur.bi.ta/, [kuˈkurbit̪ä]

### Noun

cucurbita f (genitive cucurbitae); first declension
* (Classical Latin, Late Latin, Medieval Latin) gourd, calabash (varieties of Lagenaria siceraria)
** round or oval or similar varieties allowed to ripen, by which time they are inedible because they harden, and used as vessels or for making instruments
** long, snake- or cucumber-like varieties eaten unripe, similar to the modern Lagenaria siceraria var. longissima still grown in the south of Italy (in widespread terms, resembling zucchini or courgettes but with the texture of potato)
* (derogatory) dolt
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:homo stultus
* (Late Latin) bryony (with epithets meaning "wild": silvātica, silvestris, errātica)
    Synonyms: vītis alba, bryōnia, nautea, nōtia, herba coriāria
* (Late Latin) colocynth (with epithets meaning "wild": silvātica, silvestris, agrestis)
    Synonym: colocynthis
* (New Latin) pumpkin, squash (gourds of the botanical genus Cucurbita native to the New World)

#### Declension

First-declension noun.

#### Derived terms

* cucurbitārius
* cucurbitātiō
* cucurbitīnus
* cucurbitula

#### Related terms

* cucurbita ventōsa
* cucurbitulāris

#### Descendants

* Aromanian: curcubetã
* Franco-Provençal: corda, gorda
* Old French: gurde, gourde
** Middle French:
*** French: courge, gourde
** → Middle English: gourde
*** English: gourd
* Friulian: çucje, čučhe
* Italian: cocuzza, zucca
* Occitan: cogorda, cocorda, gorda
* Piedmontese: suca
* Portuguese: cucúrbita
* Romanian: curcubetă
* Romansch: zitga, zetga, zücha, zucca
* Sardinian: curcuvica, cocorfica, cocorvica, corcoriga, colcorija, curcufica, crocoriga, tzoca
* Sicilian: cucuzza
* Spanish: cucúrbita
* Venetan: suca, zhuca, zuca, cucucìa
* → Albanian: kulte
* → Esperanto: kukurbo
* → Old French: cucurbite (learned)
** Middle French: cucurbite
*** → Middle Dutch: cucurbite
** → Old English: cucurbite
*** Middle English: cocurbite, concurbite, cucurbita, cucurbite
**** English: cucurbit
* → Proto-West Germanic: *kurbit (see there for further descendants)
* → Italian: cucurbita (learned)

### References

* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “cucurbita”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 149

### Further reading

* “cucurbita”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “cucurbita”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* cucurbita in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* cucurbita in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Genaust, Helmut (1996) “Cucúrbita”, in Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen (in German), 3rd edition, Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, →ISBN, pages 188b–189a